30 Day Book Challenge: Day 20 — Favorite Romance Book

Here’s a romantic story that I really loved:

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

This book is an epistolary novel, a format my coworker cleverly calls “reading other people’s mail.” It’s one of my favorite types to read. The drama begins when a shy young man on an island off the coast of England sees a name written in a book he likes, and decides to track that person down. If that isn’t every book-lover’s romantic fantasy, I don’t know what is. I think of the lines from Billy Collins’ poem, “Marginalia” (found in his collection Sailing Alone around the Room):

“how poignant and amplified the world before me seemed,
when I found on one page

a few greasy looking smears
and next to them, written in soft pencil–
by a beautiful girl, I could tell,
whom I would never meet–
‘Pardon the egg salad stains, but I’m in love.'”

But what if HE DID MEET THE GIRL? That’s basically the plot of TGLaPPPS (yep, I went there), but throw in some World War II drama, quirky island folk, and pushy literary agents. It’s totally romantic and heartwarming.

Curious about the rest of my answers? Find a list of them here.